The situation in 1920 (12-22-45)

The Pittsburgh Press (December 22, 1945)

Background of news –
The situation in 1920

By Bertram Benedict

When the 1946 elections for Congress come around, the Democrats will have been in control of the House of Representatives for almost 16 years. That ties the record of over 100 years. The Republicans held control of the House for 16 years from 1859 to 1875, and again from 1895 to 1911.

After a long period of control by one party, the country may be expected to be in a mood for a change, irrespective of issues.

That thought was much in the minds of the Republican National Committee members at their gathering in Chicago on December 7 and 8. Some of the Republican leaders were quoted as saying: “We can win with almost anyone in 1948, as the elections next year will show; it’s going to be like 1920.”

In 1920, after World War I, the GOP won one of the most decisive victories in American politics. It increased its Senate majority from two to 22, its House majority from 46 to 168.

In the House which convened in 1921, the Democrats had only 34 members from outside of the South. They had only three members from Illinois, two from Massachusetts, two from Missouri, one from New Jersey. In New York, they held only nine seats out of 43. There was only one Democrat from Pennsylvania, and not a single one from Ohio. There were five Republicans in the House from Tennessee and five more from Oklahoma.

The choice in 1920

When the Republican National Convention assembled in 1920, the leading candidates for the presidential nomination were Gen. Leonard Wood, Gov. Lowden of Illinois and Sen. Hiram Johnson of California.

The first lost out because of the size of the campaign fund spent for him, the second because of a scandal in the selection of certain delegates, the third because he was considered too much of a radical. So the convention chose Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio.

The nominee hardly could be considered a strong one per se. In six years in the Senate, he had not distinguished himself in debate, in sponsoring legislation, in committee deliberations. His one long Senate speech, on the League, had attracted little attention.

Yet in the election he carried every state outside of the South, and Oklahoma and Tennessee to boot.

The central issue in the 1920 election was supposed to be the League of Nations, yet the political historians agree that most voters were thinking of other factors when they went to the polls. Many voters were restive at the unprecedently high taxes (these would seem low today).

Living costs had risen 108½ percent (at their peak) in six years, had fallen little. Wheat farmers resented the ceiling price placed on wheat by the Food Administration under Herbert Hoover. Housing was scarce, especially for returning servicemen.

Wilson blamed for veto

The drys blamed President Wilson for vetoing the Volstead Act (it was passed over his veto); the wets vaguely blamed the administration for the 18th Amendment, by then in effect for 10 months.

To many voters the trade unions had been given too many concessions during the war (these would seem mild today): to many unionists, the administration had prevented labor from fully exercising its wartime strength. The administration had been widely charged with inefficiency, extravagance, bureaucracy.

Some voters of German descent hadn’t forgotten their pre-war hostility toward the administration for its strong stand against Germany; some voters of Irish descent blamed the administration for not getting freedom for Ireland at the peace conference.

But above all the country wanted a change.